Leo Frankowski

must
be in trouble out there.”
    “Not a bad
idea,” Copernick said. “But not to the coast. You can have no idea how
savage it’s gotten in the cities. I wouldn’t object to your going east.”
    “But the cities
are where we could do the most amount of good,” Mona protested.
    “No. You’ll be
able to save a given number of lives in whatever direction you go. I will not permit
the mother of my children to risk her life unnecessarily.”
    “Oh, all
right.” Mona thought that bringing the kids into the argument was remarkably poor
form.
    “Well, it’s not
all right with me. Just you two girls out there alone?” Guibedo said, ignoring the
fact that Mona was stronger than most men, including himself.
    “Oh,
Martin,” Patricia said. “We’ll have Winnie, and you know how strong
he is.”
    “That walking
house trailer is strong, but dumb. Dirk, could you fight in an emergency?”
    “I’m a bit in
pain, my lord, but it doesn’t degrade my efficiency.”
    “So you can ride
inside and keep an eye on things. And we can keep in touch through you,
too.”
    “Oh, I want to
go, too!” Liebchen got five cold stares. “Oh, please. Ohura and Colleen
can take care of the children
now, and Ishtar can watch my babies. Oh, please,
please, I won’t get in the way. I promise.”
    Saying no to Liebchen
was usually too much trouble to be worth it, and this was no exception. The five of them would leave in
the morning.
     
    The suspension bridges were all down, and
steel trusses were getting shaky.
Skyscrapers had already started to
collapse, their steel frames riddled with larvae holes. It would be a month or so before the larvae would get hard
enough up to eat the nails out of houses, but the day would come.
    Long lines of refugees streamed out of the
cities. They were pitiful to look at, though
most of them were well dressed. Many
were hurt, more were sick, and most were hungry. They pushed homemade wooden
carts and dragged plastic sleds.
    Behind them and
around them the cities were crumbling and burning.
     
    Claymore was climbing
a sheer sandstone cliff. He moved swiftly, deftly finding footholds, his four camel— like legs moving with
insect swiftness. His rigid body was a light tan color, to match his
background.
    While his forward
ganglia controlled his ascent, his central ganglia took command of his eye
tentacles—the fixed eyes were sufficient for navigation—and spread them wide for a good
view of the human city at his back.
    Even from this height
and distance, the city was a shambles. The suspension bridge had already fallen, its
center span deep underwater. One of its steel towers was down and the other
was leaning drunkenly. A nearby truss bridge still held—and might hold for
days yet—but in the end it, too, would be rubble and rust. There was no motor
traffic on the bridge. There was none anywhere. The cars and trains and planes were
falling apart on their driveways and sidings and runways. On sched ule.
    The bridge was
dotted with humans. Claymore adjusted his tentacle eyes for telescopic
vision, to study them more closely. Well dressed, most of them, but they trudged slowly under
heavy burdens. They were dirty and probably thirsty. The water mains had gone out four days before. Getting
enough water to live wouldn’t be a serious problem, but the food situation was
serious. Trucks
had stopped arriving from the countryside a week ago. This troubled him, for
ten thousand of these humans were his personal responsibility.
    Nearing the top of
the cliff, he scanned out to the west. About half of the power towers had
fallen. The lines had been dead for days. As he watched, one more went, slowly crashing
into the rustred dust. The center of the city was mostly empty. Two of the
tallest buildings had fallen so far, clogging the main intersections. The few people still
there moved quickly, furtively watching the remaining buildings. He focused in on
one of them. Shabbily dressed and remarkably dirty, this man picked up a brick from a
fallen skyscraper and threw it through a large window in a still-standing building.
Afraid to go too far inside, he leaned past the broken glass and began filling
a canvas bag with the contents of the display window.
    Claymore focused closer, curious as to
what this human was risking his life to get.
Baubles! Crystallized carbon, gold,
and silver. Crystallized aluminum oxide with a small percentage of chromium or magnesium. The stuff
seemed to have no useful purpose